Mass Shootings and Gun Debate 2019ish

[novaveritas]

ok so what is a White Helmet, I'm still so lost
American ignorance is the best kind imo 'murrka fuck yea

White Helmet, Syrian civil defence organization which only operates in Headchopper held territory. In reality white helmets are a US and NATO funded propaganda organisation founded by an ex UK MI6 agent.
White helmets have been shown to stage events for publicity.

Since there seems to be some confusion as to who the good guys are and who the bad guys are in Syria, there are no good guys at all.

Iran does not support ISIS, ISIS was supported by the Saudis and UAE. The US encouraged ISIS in Iraq as a Sunni counterbalance to the Shia militias but it kind of got out of control and swept into Syria, which was fine by the US because ISIS was anti Assad and supposedly controllable by Saudi Arabia but then ISIS got out of control. Like the Mujahadeen which mutated into Al Qaeda

ISIS and the moderate headchoppers are interchangeable, the alliances are fluid, the west funded and armed the moderate headchoppers some who were aligned with Al Qaeda or actually were AQ, the same western supplied weapons ended up in the hands of ISIS and also AQ.
ISIS was most likely supported indirectly and perhaps directly by the CIA and MI6 as well as Mossad.

The Syrian Kurds are a wild card and are supported by Israel as a counterweight to Turkey and also by the USA who use them to control the oil and prevent the Iraqi Kurds from controlling Rojava, the likelyhood is that once again the US will abandon the Kurds. However the Kurds are more than capable of arranging a truce with Assad because there is a long standing unofficial policy of the kurds and syrian arab army not to attack each other. The Kurds will need Assad to protect them from the turks at some point in the future.

Assad and the Syrian Arab Army are supported by both Russia and Iran and secretly by China who pay the bills. The syrian arab army is the only secular as opposed to sectarian force in syria, syria has a large number of different religious flavors and secularism is the only solution. The SAA is mostly sunni despite Assad being shia alawite. Outside the western media reports it is clear the SAA have widespread support in Syria.[/QUOTE]

 

[novaveritas]

I think you missed the bit where I said "no rules of engagement" I was in Helmand (twice) and do you have any idea what difference it would have made if it had been declared a free fire zone like the Yanks had in the second battle of Fallujha? We were under ridiculous constraint by the yellow card..
And there's no need to thank me for my service... It was my pleasure

who controls fallujah now???
my point being in the great scheme of things everything you did in Afghanistan was a pointless waste of blood and treasure. You can blame rules of engagement or whatever the reality is that Afghanistan is where empires go to collapse and imperial soldiers die. The only difference is that without rules of engagement the Taliban would have melted completely away and return when you had left and you would still be a hated invader.

are there still vacancies in the 77th batallion

 

[apocalypse_when]

who controls fallujah now???
my point being in the great scheme of things everything you did in Afghanistan was a pointless waste of blood and treasure.

Well I don't disagree with you... It was a waste.. Excuse me if I'm a bit touchy about this subject but I lost a lot of good freinds in helmand... And the things I saw and did haunt me to this day

 

[Captain.Heroin]

Novaveritas how can there be no good guys at all? The Syrian rebels are wrong to want a real form of government? America is wrong for supporting them?

Your post is going to sound incredibly offensive to US BL'ers. But, hey if that's your opinion so be it.

my point being in the great scheme of things everything you did in Afghanistan was a pointless waste of blood and treasure.

I really wouldn't talk to veterans like this. Blame the politicians who sent good people off to die in a war you don't agree with, don't blame the fighters themselves IMO.

But I guess if you're pushing non-violence philosophy I guess you really can blame them? I wouldn't personally.

 

[apocalypse_when]

I really wouldn't talk to veterans like this. Blame the politicians who sent good people off to die in a war you don't agree with, don't blame the fighters themselves IMO.

But I guess if you're pushing non-violence philosophy I guess you really can blame them? I wouldn't personally.

It's the Internet... People say shit.. It doesn't bother me.

I will have to answer to my God for the things I did but I don't have to answer to an anonymous username on a drug forum (no offense intended to anyone btw)

 

[novaveritas]

Novaveritas how can there be no good guys at all? The Syrian rebels are wrong to want a real form of government? America is wrong for supporting them?

Your post is going to sound incredibly offensive to US BL'ers. But, hey if that's your opinion so be it.


I really wouldn't talk to veterans like this. Blame the politicians who sent good people off to die in a war you don't agree with, don't blame the fighters themselves IMO.

But I guess if you're pushing non-violence philosophy I guess you really can blame them? I wouldn't personally.

The rebels are not what you think they are at all, they are primarily fundementalist islamists.

I do hold the politicians accountable but the military are not without blame, the rules of war are well known by all officers and no soldier should obey an unlawful order.

The people who really suffer in all of this is not just the military or the veterans who are discarded and offered nothing but meaningless platitudes after discharge but the civilians who are killed in huge numbers and whole swathes of the world reduced to rubble.

I have a certain respect for Gabbard daring to mention this unmentionable.
No one should be asked to fight in a war where nobody knows what the objective is, or what the end game is Win the war, lose the peace.
The military is there to protect the nation, defense. Military adventurism does not protect the nation and this was know way back and it shaped the founding fathers views.
Run this scenario, we have seen again and again that flipflop armies defeat the most powerful military the world has ever seen, so what happens when the Empire falters and stumbles, more forever war?
The USA has been gifted the most amazing geopolitical position, it currenlty is the only superpower in the world, so far the USA has wasted this oportunity on futile colonial wars which are bleeding the US dry but feeding the MIC, The US doesn't need to do this but plunder is easier than building stuff, until it isn't. There are already enough military forces on this planet to wipe out civilization several times over and the US military is the single largest consumer of oil resources on the planet... I fear the US will not see the opportunity to co-operate and will remain belligerant and warlike and ultimately go the way of all empires.

 

[TheLoveBandit]

Apologies in advance, but have several links collected to share here...buckle up.

= = = = = =

‘Media and politicians DON’T get it’: Brian Cates’ thread on the gunman’s alleged ‘manifesto’ is a must read

The first mistake people are making is to assume the creep meant anything he said in his manifesto.

The media and politicians don’t understand the line that was crossed with Christchurch tragedy.
We’re now facing something new.

Before, a person intensely motivated by politics would write a manifesto to explain their reasons for resorting to violence.

Shitposting trolls on the chans aren’t trying to affect real political change.

The manifesto is PART of the trolling.
The ChristChurch shooter streamed his mass murder live over social media.

Part of the 'fun' for him & his followers on the chans was that they knew the authorities were going to treat his contradictory, absurd manifesto as if it were **real**.
The **Antifa** guy from three weeks ago, now THAT was an old style attempt at a mass murder.

He left behind a rambling, disjointed manifesto enumerating political reasons for his attack on the ICE facility.

But something new has been added into the mix in the last year and we have to recognize it:

Mass shootings done for **fun** as the ultimate troll where these shitposters write confusing manifestos and then sit back & watch the fun as both sides claim he belongs to the other.
A genuine political terrorist doesn't want to be taken alive. The goon in Washington State last month wasn't. Truly crazy mass shooters don't want to be taken alive either. They often turn their guns on themselves or force the cops to kill them.
Van Spronsen's manifesto, as disjointed as it was, provided a clear motive.

The ChristChurch demon & his copycats are purposefully writing manifestos that are a smorgasbord of conflicting political rhetoric, almost none of which they believe.
Do you realize what's happening?

These shitposters **know** how the mainstream media reacts to one of these mass shooting events, how both sides immediately start poring over the manifesto, scouring the social media, each trying to say to the other "AHA! HE BLONGS TO YOU GUYS!"
Writing a satirical nonsensical manifesto before hand has now become part of the troll.

This is why these guys **INSIST** on surrendering alive. They want to watch the "fun" as the media tries to figure out which 'side' they belong to.
We're only 1 day into the investigation of this El Paso mass murder.

And the MSM is doing what the MSM always does, treating each one of these events exactly alike, following the exact same template.

They can't recognize yet sometimes this is even more horrible than usual.
We're having murders done now by nihilists who are doing it just to f**k with people.

There **IS** no deeper purpose. There is no real underlying political motive.

But we have a media & a political atmosphere right now that literally cannot recognize this.
So...

there are now SEVERAL KINDS of mass attacks these days:

1) political terrorists
2) crazy people
3) shitposting nihilists

And it's actually making it WORSE that people confuse one of these for another.
And of course, I recognize that we have a DNC Media Complex we're saddled with in this country that has a vested interest in NOT accurately reporting political terrorism carried out by Leftists.

They've spent 2 years covering for Antifa.
They didn't accurately report Van Spronsen being a political terrorist any more than they accurately reported Hodgkinson trying to assassinate GOP lawmakers on that baseball field back in 2017.

So that's another reason the current scene is so infuriating.
So of course the MSM and Democrats aren't waiting even one day into this investigation to label this murderer in El Paso as a Trump supporter egged into committing this horrible crime due to the 'climate of hate' that Trump has created.
They are, of course, making the stupid mistake of taking several lines of this creep's manifesto at face value.

It hasn't even been conclusively proven he wrote this yet.

But both sides are already out there trying to play 'pin the tail on the donkey' with him.
We're in the shitposting as motive for terrorism era now folks.

That's yet another reason not to join the rush to judgement after something like this.

Even if he wrote that manifesto, he could have been writing it to troll people, not to share his actual beliefs.
Remember, Van Spronsen picked a target in line with his POLITICAL BELIEFS. He picked an ICE facility.

Nowhere in that manifesto he wrote does this **explain** why he would pick random strangers in a Wal-Mart to be his victims. He shot people of all races, all genders, races.
Hodgkinson picked GOP lawmakers because he was motivated by his political ideology, and wrote this was about paying them back for 'taking away people's healthcare'.

Nowhere does this guy in El Paso explain why he picked random people in a Wal Mart. He gives no political reason
What particular offense had he taken to people shopping in a Wal-Mart that he just had to shoot them over it?

What real *political statement* would he be making by shooting these people?

With Hodgkinson & Van Spronson, it's clear what political statement they were making.
That's why my initial impression the day after is that people who are assuming POLITICS really motivated this guy are making a huge mistake in assuming that.

Raises question that I've not heard asked much about shooter intent in these cases. Yes, it lambastes MSM for how they approach it, but it also brings into question some of the motivation, and why some are taken alive.

 

[TheLoveBandit]

Article from 2015, apologies if it was already cited in this thread as I have avoided it for the most part.

There's No Correlation Between Gun Ownership, Mass Shootings, and Murder Rates

While I was fact checking today's Mises Daily article, I checked some correlation coefficients of my own so I didn't have to rely on Volokh's numbers as my only source.

I approached the data a little differently than Volokh did and instead of using a subjective ranking by an organization like the Brady organization, I just looked at the rate of gun ownership in the state. After all, the argument is often that more guns and more gun owners leads to more violence.

So, I looked at the correlation between the gun ownership rate (a percentage on the x axis) and the murder rate (n per 100,000 on the y axis) in each state. The visual result is this:

As you can see, there is no correlation. In fact, if you run the numbers, the correlations coefficient is 0.1, which suggests a negligible correlation, or none at all. The murder data is 2012 data from the Justice Department. The gun ownership rate data is from a 2015 report called "Gun ownership and social gun culture."

Just for good measure, I also went in and looked for a correlation between mass shootings and gun ownership rates. Here, I took the total number of mass shooting victims in all states so far in 2015. This is updated constantly by Mass Shooting Tracker, and includes the most recent Oregon mass shooting. Mass shootings here include a shooting involving 4 or more people, and do not necessarily mean school shooting. They can mean someone went nuts and shot his wife, her lover, and two bystanders at a birthday party when the shooter personally knew all the victims. There are not just cases of random public shootings. If we only included those, the total numbers would be microscopically small. Even with all mass shooting data together, it's obvious that your odds of being involved in one in any given year are vanishingly small, and less than 1 per 100,000 in 48 states. I've included all victims, not just fatalities here. If I used only fatalities, the mass shooting numbers would be much smaller (x axis = gun ownership percentage; y axis = mass shooting deaths per 100,000):

There's even less of a correlation here: -0.006.

Now, I've noticed that when someone points out the lack of a correlation here, gun-control advocates are quick to jump in and say "but you didn't control for this" and "you didn't control for that." That's true. But what I do show here is that the situation is much more complicated than one would think from absurd claims like "states with fewer guns have fewer murders" and so on. Apparently, claims that new gun laws are commonsensical can't be true if the relationship between gun laws and murder rates require us to adjust for half a dozen different variables. In fact, by looking at the data, I could imagine any number of other factors that might be more likely a determinant of the murder rate than gun ownership.

The charts are very basic, not a lot of interpretation or nuance - simply graphing % of gun owners in a state across the X, and murder rate per 100k in each state (first chart) or mass shooting victims per 100k in each state (second chart). From just the basic data points, there isn't a correlation to be made for murder rate or mass shootings against gun ownership.

I saw elsewhere that doing this by state is misleading as there are concentrated cities where most of this occurs, which is of course swayed by how one chooses to define 'mass shooting'.

 

[TheLoveBandit]

An accepted 'smart man' who took a lot of heat for stating these facts. I'm not quite sure how much I buy this list of 'facts'. I mean, I take them as being true....but comparable or relevant?

 

[TheLoveBandit]

An eye witness at the mass shooting in Texas says there were 3-4 shooters dressed in black. Possible 'False Flag'?

Possible? Yes. Likely? No. More likely? Someone exiting a traumatic situation where their mind can't fully grasp wtf just happened.

The fact still remains that if this idiot didn't have access to automatic weapons then he probably wouldn't have had the balls to attempt this kind of shit. I'm guessing you're in the 'more guns = less crime' camp?

Disagree. Where there is a will, there is a way. It may not have been that day, but there are other means to killing many people readily available. The problem isn't the gun, it's the mentality of the individual that they have reached a point of deciding to kill others.

 

[TheLoveBandit]

In 2016, a Republicans in the Senate voted unanimously to ban people from buying guns who were on the FBI’s terrorist watch list.

The NRA even supported it.

Every. Single. Democrat. Voted. Against. It.

Democrats are not serious about finding solutions?

I didn't hear about that, thanks for sharing. In reading the article, it seems both sides put forth proposals:

Reps = "sought to block the sales of weapons to people on the FBI’s terrorist watch list... the attorney general would be given 72 hours to prove there was a probable cause for denying a suspected terrorist the ability to purchase a gun. The measure garnered support from the National Rifle Association but failed on a 53-47 vote. It needed 60 votes to pass."

Dems = "allowed the attorney general to ban the sale of guns to known or suspected terrorists if there was "reasonable belief" the weapons may be used to carry out an attack."

Similar proposals, both defeated by 47-53 votes. You would think leaders could work together rather than dig in with 'my way or no way'.

Feinstein disagreed and questioned the feasibility of Cornyn’s bill, saying that it's “nearly impossible” to mandate the Department of Justice provide evidence within 72 hours. She said the FBI’s database is “clearly vetted.”

Still, left-leaning groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, had long complained about the credibility of the FBI database and argued that individuals such as former Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, were inadvertently added to the watch list. The ACLU also said the database is “unconstitutionally vague, and innocent people are blacklisted without a fair process to correct government error."

Along those lines,

The Senate also defeated 53-47 a proposal from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, seeking to reauthorize funding for the National Criminal Instant Background Check System and incentivize states to share mental health records with the federal system. It also called for the commission of a study on the causes of mass shootings.

The other competing measure, proposed by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, failed 44-56. It would have expanded the background check system for online and gun show sales. The proposed bill required federal agencies to identify individuals prohibited from buying a gun and imposed penalties on states that fail to make its date electronically available to the background check system.

Which I do remember talk about the database and states sharing info. Personally, I'm still very much in favor of such a system to be implemented as it should address a myriad of issues nationally (immigration checks, false names upon arrest, etc). I fully support states sharing such info and the gov't making a system that can provide such decisions quickly. Mistakes will still happen, but there will be pressure for both speed AND accuracy in the data.

 

[novaveritas]

Switzerland has a hell of a lot of real assualt rifles out there but ther are not many shootings. What is it the Swiss have that the US doesn't? hint its not cuckoo clocks and chocolate.

If you create a national psyche that fetishizes guns, for an example people on this subforum here fetishized a MP5 (for those that don't know it is a small black German 9mm fully automatic penis extension) and gun violence or otherwise, take a quick look at Hollywoods output, combine that with a Health Care system and regulatory system that doesn't care about anything other than the bottom line, have a slow economic decline and throw into this some divisive tribal partisan gasoline and a culture that is happy to throw people in the trash this is what you get.

The solution is not going to be easy, rather than blame somebody else look at what you do and whether you are the problem or part of the solution. If you let hate fill you whether it is hatred for leftists right-wingers moslems blacks whites Russians or whoever, you are the problem because you have dehumanized these people. It is a lot easier to pull the trigger on a dehumanized target than a human being. You will be played by the divide and conquer strategy of the current masters. If you think it is justifiable to use force to inflict laws of man on someone else against natural law you are the problem because the disprespect and hate will just be reflected and magnified.

Crazies will be crazy and evil will be evil and it actually doesn't matter if they kill one with a sharpened stick or ten with a rifle or a hundred thousand with bombs, if your loved one is the one it matters not one bit. People who have guns and aren't shooting people are not the problem and should be left alone. Guns don't really provide self protection but they make people feel safer. I don't personally feel guns give safety, they take you down a path that only has one outcome and you are not in control. If you have a gun then you must be willing to use it without hesitation to kill because I know there is never enough time to properly weigh this decision. But the vast majority of gun owners cause no trouble whatsoever so why should their liberties be infringed.

The solution here is to give people hope, people with hope don't carry out suicidal gun massacres. If people have mental health problems then help them, we have created a world that has become less and less suited to humans and rather than acknowledge this we are applying band aids of antidepressants and zombifying psychotherapies and total neglect. death follows the death of hope light night follows day.

Guns are not at the root of this. People are.

 

[Chris42393]

Possible? Yes. Likely? No. More likely? Someone exiting a traumatic situation where their mind can't fully grasp wtf just happened.



Disagree. Where there is a will, there is a way. It may not have been that day, but there are other means to killing many people readily available. The problem isn't the gun, it's the mentality of the individual that they have reached a point of deciding to kill others.

I you.

 

[TheLoveBandit]

I you.

Truth be told, I can be quite lovable.

 

[Chris42393]

Truth be told, I can be quite lovable.

That is very very true.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

You would think leaders could work together rather than dig in with 'my way or no way'.

Bipartisanship shut down a long time ago. Everyone adopted my attitude regarding it (ironically).

 

[swilow]

Guns are not at the root of this. People are.

People...with guns are.

I really liked your post. The culture in the US is probably one of the worst in which rampant gun ownership could exist. Consider the whole idea of the American dream, the self made man, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, etc. Everything telling the individual that they alone are the only agent involved in manifesting their destiny. This doesn't bind people together, it creates a nation of individual components competing against each other to get ahead. When you have a gun and no other power to make your will manifest and you live in a culture that fetishises individual achievements (hey Trump) it's not hard to see a gun as your ticket to power. When you have nothing to lose and no way to ever get ahead but live in a society that only values those who come out on top, the top of a pile of corpses may be the best you can hope for.

 

[jpgrdnr]

I was personally disgusted by the amount of people attending these vigils as a sort of community catharsis. I had to turn the TV off at that point. The level of emotional tourism was vomit inducing.

Saying these attacks are Mental Health related is a cop out. Its so much deeper. What America has failed is to provide Men with meaningful occupation. Not jobs. But purpose. To reference Jordan Peterson.
These shootings are trivial. People die every damn day. The only reason this is even an issue is because Fake News has nothing interesting to report. If it bleeds it leads.
The guy with the manifesto is an idiot. Some basic Thanos argument for godsake. His actions are overall trivial and people will forget this has happened. As a political action it is meaningless. People do not care at all. It is not domestic terrorism, he is simply a mass murderer.

 

[mal3volent]

It is not domestic terrorism, he is simply a mass murderer.

If he used a bomb instead of a gun and shouted allahu akbar beforehand would it have been terrorism?

The level of emotional tourism was vomit inducing.

Yes! Unbelievable. People go to those vigils because they know they'll be cameras there. Unless their family or friends of the victims anyway.

 

[jpgrdnr]

If he used a bomb instead of a gun and shouted allahu akbar beforehand would it have been terrorism?

My intention was to belittle his actions by proclaiming him a simple murderer as opposed to groups with historical ties to real persecution by the State or other forces. He neither belongs to any legit group or organization nor does he have any sort of rigorous ideology. Was he a man who committed an act of terror against the public to insult the State? Sure, but as a lone gunman he lacked organization. I don't believe he knew he was going to do it 6 months ago let alone why he was doing it. His political motivations are garbage. Its simply the cost of a virtually open gun market within the great old USA. It will never change. Its written into the Constitution and what the country is founded upon.